“Everyone in the industry knows, DMs [devil messages] are a quick and easy way to get a youth pastor to advertise a band at a youth group meeting,” says one promoter who requested anonymity. Picking on evangelicals is “the hot new marketing trend because you can take their outrage straight to the bank,” he says.

Jerold Jameson, founder of the “Youth Threat: Backward Masking Exposed” seminar which was wildly popular at evangelical churches in the 1980s, recently left his job selling tires in Birmingham, Ala., to revive “Youth Threat.” The reason: an unexpected gift of $125,000 from an anonymous donor.

“Backward masking is still a danger to our youth, just like it was in the 1980s,” Jameson says during a 2-day seminar at a mega-church in Missouri.

The crowd of 1,350 gasped repeatedly as Jameson revealed hidden backward messages in current pop music.

But Jameson won’t discuss his alleged connection to Geffen Records, one of several major labels rumored to be stoking the backward masking controversy in hopes that evangelical ire will boost sagging music sales. Geffen says only that it gives “to a wide variety of charities.”

In the 1970s and ’80s, artists reaped millions of dollars in free publicity when churches displayed offensive album covers and played snippets of their music to warn youth away. Now major labels are hungry for more. Artists confirm that labels pressure them to plant offensive messages backwards in their music, to help publicize records.

“Our label wanted us to do the ‘natas’ thing,” says the leader of an up-and-coming band. “We caved and put some DM stuff under a guitar solo. Hopefully our fans will forgive us.”

Labels hire people to talk up backward masking on Christian chat rooms and blog sites. Some labels even send offensive CDs directly to churches, hoping the youth pastors will hold them up during youth meetings and preach against them.

“That’s pure gold,” says one promoter.

Other labels, smelling opportunity, are trotting out old Christian punching bags like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, hoping to goose catalog sales. Ozzy Osbourne’s label asked him to add fresh backward messages to Bark at the Moon when the label re-mastered it. Osbourne reluctantly agreed.

“I put in a few devil lines, but I felt silly about it,” he says.

But sales of the 22-year-old album were well above expectations, especially in the Midwest where such controversies tend to have more traction. Some churches even sponsored record-burnings, known as “jackpots” in the music industry because of the publicity they produce. SoundScan shows that in some local markets, sales of offensive albums spike on Mondays and Thursdays, due to the curiosity generated by youth group meetings.

The labels’ strategy seems to be working. Today, Jameson’s “Youth Threat” seminar is booked in churches through next year.

“Backward masking never went away,” says one pastor. “It just went underground for a while.” •